Hidden Alliances
Hidden Alliances is a gameplay variant introduced in Cosmic Eons. It makes use of the new alliance dials included in Cosmic Eons to provide more opportunity for alliances and betrayal by making all players choose their alliances simultaneously. Alliance dials Cosmic Eons includes six alliance dials. These show a hyperspace gate, representing the offense's side, and a planet, representing the defense's side, with a window on each. The front and back faces of the dials can be rotated to show a number of options: * 1 to 4 dots, representing ships, in one window. * A star in one window. * A card icon, representing foreign aid, in one window. * Dashes in both windows. Gameplay If using this variant, the Alliance phase is modified. Main players invite allies as normal, but instead of invited players accepting in turn order, invited players and any other players who could become allies (Parasite, etc). each take an alliance dial and secretly set it to show the number of ships they will commit and to which side (offense or defense) they will commit them. Players must do so even if they could ally but do not intend to do so, in order to keep their intentions secret. When a player is ready, he or she places his or her alliance dial face down. Once all players have set their alliance dials, they reveal them simultaneously: * Players who set their dials to show ships each move the selected number of ships to the selected side of the encounter and become allies with the chosen side. Players can only select this option if they were invited to ally by the appropriate side. * Players who set both windows to show dashes do not move any ships into the encounter and do not become allies. * The star is used for special cases, such as the Plasma Thrusters tech card. The star is also used if more information is needed than can be provided by the dial alone, in which case the player sets his or her dial to the star, then, after all dials are set but before they are revealed, announces his or her intentions. * The foreign aid option is not used unless using the Foreign Aid optional rule, as described below. Foreign Aid option If using this optional rule, all non-main players must set an alliance dial even if they were not invited to become allies, and any player (invited or not) may select foreign aid for either side on their alliance dial, even if they were not invited to the selected side, to represent foreign aid. When players reveal their dials, each player who selected foreign aid must choose and secretly show one card from his or her hand to the main player whose side he or she selected. Each main player reviews his or her offers and, for each offer, may either reject it, in which case the offering player takes back his or her card; or accept it, in which case the main player takes the card into his or her hand, the offering player gains one reward and the main player may invite the offering player to ally with a specified number of ships, overriding any previous alliance invitation for that player.